Day County, South Dakota, was created west of the Sisseton Reservation Line, surveyed in 1869, and formed from Greeley in the south and Stone in the north, being so named in 1873 by the Legislature of 1879 for Merritt H. Day of Turner County, a member. Before that, its area had been part of a gigantic Hanson County in 1870. Its first white resident was Francis Rondelle, a trader in the area as early as 1868, and Horace J. Austin, a surveyor, found him living 2 miles west of present Waubay in October 1877. Earl P. Owen settled near Minnewaste Lake in April 1877 and became postmaster at Waubay, at the east end of Waubay Lake, on November 3, 1879. In 1880, the Milwaukee, pushing in from the east, ran its first train into Webster City, on J.P. Webster’s homestead, on October 27. The Reporter and Farmer began in September 1881, and on January 2, 1882, Charles Warner, Lansing Sykes, and George Bryant, as county commissioners, organized the county and named Webster the county seat. The present area of the Reservation Line was added in 1883, and its southern tier of townships was taken from Clark and became part of Day in 1885. Lying mainly on the High Coteau, the county includes Pickerel, long and deep, Enemy Swim, Blue Dog, Waubay, and thirteen lesser but sizeable lakes rich in fish and waterfowl, while its richly grassed uplands provide cover for other game birds and make it a sportsman’s paradise.